eBay appoints European General Manager of Fashion

Following the news that eBay UK is outperforming not only eBay.com, but also ecommerce growth in general with Fashion being by far the best performing category, eBay have announced that retail apparel veteran Miriam Lahage, is moving from a North America role at eBay to Europe to focus on growing the fashion category.

Miriam has more than two decades of extensive offline and ecommerce retail experience including 20 years at TJX companies, a discount global retailer of clothing and home fashion. In 2007, she successfully launched Koodos, the first online discount boutique for designer brands in the UK and managed the successful sale of Koodos in late 2009 to the E-Trader Group who also own StockShifters, a trade marketplace for excess stock.

Fashion is already a multibillion-pound category for eBay, and with the Daily and Weekly deals program and the launch of the Fashion Outlets in the UK and Germany it is growing at a phenomenal pace. Last week’s completion of the acquisition of German fashion site, brands4friends, is another example of eBay’s efforts to cement its position in the fashion market.

eBay’s Clare Gilmartin, Vice-President of Europe, thinks that there is still huge potential for growth in the online fashion market and Miriam’s extensive retail experience and entrepreneurial vision for fashion ecommerce will be instrumental in leading this growing part of the business from strength to strength.

Fashion has been the focus for eBay for the last year and it’s showing no signs of running out of momentum. However it’s unlikely that eBay will continue to focus on this one category without applying the lessons learnt to other market sectors.

Which categories do you forecast growth in over the next year, either through growing consumer demand, or simply because the sector deserves a makeover (similar to the revamp of eBay’s fashion categories which went live last October)? Which categories are most likely to see explosive growth in 2011?